“But it isn’t,” struck in Hyland. “He’s got a bad knock on the head, but old Vine’ll be able to put that right. Come, get up, Edala dear. We must put him to bed, you know.”
The tone was decisive, practical, but the speaker felt far from as confident as he would have his sister believe. And Dr Vine’s diagnosis was by no means reassuring. He feared complications. So the wounded man was carried into the airiest and most comfortable room in Elvesdon’s far from luxurious house, where all was done for him that could be done.
There was difficulty with Edala. She refused to leave the bedside day or night. It was only when her father recovered full consciousness that they were able to get her away, when she had poured out her soul to him in an agony of remorse and self-reproach. Then he had soothed her, and insisted upon her taking rest and food; and she had obeyed unquestioningly. His lightest word was law now—as it had been in the times long past. She was allowed to help her brother and Elvesdon in their unremitting care of the wounded man, and the same held good of Evelyn Carden. But it was once and for all decided that neither of the girls should be allowed to overdo it, and this was adhered to no matter how much they begged and pleaded.
Elvesdon had taken up the reins of office again, and found his hands very full indeed. The telegraph wire had been repaired, and messages kept flashing in, communicating matters which demanded his constant attention, some necessary and some not. But at night he never curtailed one single half hour of his vigil at the bedside of his friend in recently and narrowly escaped peril. They had gone through a furnace together.
Strong man as he was the strain was beginning to tell upon Elvesdon. He looked pale and fagged, and his spirits became depressed. His conversation with Thornhill in the hour of their mutual danger was fresh in his mind, but although he saw a great deal of Edala there was nothing in the girl’s look or manner to show that she regarded him in the light of any other than an ordinary friend, a jolly good chum with no nonsense about him, and whom she could treat with the same free, frank camaraderie as her own brother. This, of course, was no time to urge any further claim upon her: he recognised that. Still he felt depressed.
While feeling a little more so than usual there came a knock at his office door. It was late afternoon and he was wondering whether he could venture to shut up for a time before any more of those beastly wires came in.
“Miss Thornhill would like to see you, sir,” said Prior, entering. “Will you see her?”
“Why of course. And—er—Prior. I don’t want to be disturbed, no matter who by. See?”
Prior did see, and if the Governor himself had appeared on the scene until that door should open again, decidedly His Excellency would have had to wait.
“And now, to what is this unwonted honour due?” he began, closing the door behind his visitor. “First of all, sit. Why, Diane chasseresse, you have not been obeying orders I’m afraid. You are looking a little bit—well, overdone.”